A number of businesses and associations have been deploying information swat teams in the Capitol to lobby on policies from privacy to broadband, and Sydney Rubin is fast becoming a bullhorn for these high-tech coalitions. Rubin has just taken on OpenNet, a business coalition spearheaded by America Online to force cable companies to open their high-speed data networks to competing Internet service providers. Rubin said her consulting firm, Ignition Strategies, was hired to spread the message beyond Washington, into communities that could benefit from what OpenNet advocates. Rubin's other clients include the Online Privacy Alliance, BBB Online and the Learning Company. Rubin said she soon would be taking on the One-Click initiative that was unveiled at the White House in April. That program aims to give parents tools to help their kids safely surf the Internet.

      The American Electronics Association's Paul Brownell is the most recent staffer to leave the ranks of an association that has provided a number of other groups a stable of prime lobbyists. Brownell, who spent a little over a year as AEA's director of trade regulation, is joining the National Venture Capital Association as director of federal policy and political advocacy. He will shift from his current focus on export control and customs issues to another high-tech hot button issue: research and development tax credits.

      David Calabrese is going back into the trenches and interning at Dewey-Ballentine for two months this summer starting June 1. He's taking temporary leave from the Electronics Industries Alliance where he's the director of international trade, while he fulfills some George Washington University Law School duties at a local law firm. He will continue to work on international trade issues as part of his internship, just as long as he can keep the coffee coming.

     House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-CA, is the Business Software Alliance's "Cyber Champion" for quickly shepherding Y2K liability legislation through the House last month and assuring high-tech groups of his support for encryption legislation now making its way through the committee process. As head of the Rules Committee, Drier makes his stamp on every piece of legislation that hits the House floor. Last year's chairman Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-NY, opposed encryption legislation and successfully kept it from moving to full House consideration. BSA planned to hand out the award this week at a Capitol Hill luncheon.

     President Clinton hasn't missed a beat in the Y2K shuffle over at the Office of Management and Budget. He plans to nominate Sally Katzen, deputy chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, to be OMB's deputy director for management where she'll oversee federal Y2K repair efforts. Katzen would replace Edward DeSeve, who was the acting deputy director until March, when he left his post to join KPMG Peat Marwick. Deidre Lee, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, has been filling DeSeve's spot until a permanent replacement could be found.

     Sens. Robert Bennett, R-UT, Christopher Dodd, D-CT, and Ron Wyden , D-OR, are hosting a breakfast with Intel's Andy Grove this week as industry groups make one last push for the Senate to act on Y2K liability legislation. Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr also may meet with senators on the issue as lobbying hits peak intensity. Bennett and Dodd co-chair the Senate's special committee on Y2K and Dodd and Wyden have worked with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-AZ, to craft compromise legislation that can draw Democratic support.

     Sen. Connie Mack R-FL is hosting a bevy of heavies next week as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, IBM CEO Louis Gerstner and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates will weigh in what role the high-tech industry is playing in the new economy at a Joint Economic Committee summit. The three-day summit is the first high-tech themed event held by the JEC.

     In media news, Harrison "Lee" Rainie is leaving U.S. News & World Report to consult for the Pew Charitable Trusts on a project studying how the Internet effects American society.

     Paul Gallant has traded in his staff ID at the Federal Communications Commission for a frequent visitor pass, landing a new job in the Arlington, VA office of Qwest Communications International. Gallant worked at the FCC as an attorney in the Common Carrier Bureau, Office of the General Counsel and the Cable Services Bureau over his five and a half-year stint at the agency. As a senior policy counsel at Qwest, which provides Internet broadband services, Gallant will lobby on telecommunications issues.

     Peter J. M. Orvetti, headline writer extraordinaire, associate editor and holder of badge No. 1 at National Journal's Technology Daily, has moved from the Fourth Estate into new digs at the Cato Institute where he'll oversee the think tank's Web projects. We'll miss his wit and Web mastery and wish him luck.

    Send comments and contributions to Rebecca S. Weiner.